Brad Brown

A lot of people have been asking for before and after photos form my weight loss efforts for the last year.  To be dead honest I’ve been quite hesitant to post these photo’s because I still want to lose another 3o kilograms. So, below are the before photo’s and a halfway to my goal photo. The first two were taken last June, around the time when I decided to run Comrades. I was 165kg’s and I’m sure you can understand why sports physician was not to keen on me giving Comrades a bash. The last photo was taken last on Thursday the 10^th of June in Soweto for the Fifa 2010 Kick Off Concert. It was taken exactly a year, to the day, after the picture at the Confederations Cup warm up game.
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I had the funniest experience last night that I just had to share. I attended the Rockies Road Runners Comrades 2010 panel talk at the Zoo Lake sports grounds. The speakers had a wealth of Comrades experience and knowledge and I thought it would be good to go learn from them. Included on the panel was 9 times Comrades winner Bruce Fordyce, Dan Oliver who is a running coach extraordinaire (He has also completed 19 Comrades marathons himself) and well known and highly respected sports physician Dr Jon Patricios. Don Oliver opened the meeting breaking down his training programme and Bruce Fordyce wrapped things up with a bit of a what to expect session and opened the floor for a bit of a Q&A session which was very entertaining and informative.

The amusing bit of the evening was the talk by Dr Jon Patricios Read more…

I had the funniest run yesterday. It wasn’t funny at the time but thinking about it now makes me chuckle. I guess that is one of the downsides of running with someone who is hectically fit. We decided that we would go out together but I would dictate the pace. Still being half a backstreet boy overweight I am trying to focus on getting through a run without popping a lung, Read more…

As a runner I was never an over achiever. Far from it. If you know me you would know that I am built more for comfort than for speed. But that’s what I love about running. You don’t need to be a speed merchant to enjoy a run. Truthfully, I am about a Backstreet Boy overweight and have set some really lofty goals for my running career.

 I ran quite a bit in high school. In case you were wondering, Curt Cobain was still alive when I was in high school. In fact I was relatively fit, I had run a sub 50 minute 10km and comfortably done a half marathon. But then just got busy with life. And stuff. Before I knew it was 2009 and I was grossly overweight.

 In the time between Curt dying and me realising if I don’t change my lifestyle I’m going to die I had discovered the joys of smoking and beer. I was a 2 pack a day smoker and playing in nightclubs 5 nights a week didn’t help with my alcohol consumption. Gratefully I’ve managed to kick the filthy smoking habit and have cut down massively when it comes to drinking.

 The hard slog is underway to lose the excess baggage. Along the way I doubt I’ll break 50 minutes for 10km’s again but I’m looking forward to running some more half marathons. One of those lofty goals is also to run comrades. Maybe next year. Maybe not. But it will be run.